5 Boro Bike Tour Tandem Trike: Spokes…people.

First things first. My water meter was located. It was in its own pit covered with snow and ice. The meter was frozen. Once thawed, the water flowed. The underground pipe to my house was fine. It was just as I suspected. Now I know where my meter is. I’m very happy to have water again.

We’re still dealing with cold weather and possibly another snow event in the next day or so. I’ve moved my focus from metal work to the drivetrain until I can get outside and put some hours into the trike frame. The spokes arrived today so I laced up one of the front wheels.

I have to say that the quality of these rims from The Shadow Conspiracy is impressive. They are really sturdy and true right out of the box. As it stands I think the truing process will be one of not messing up the current straightness of the rim rather than correcting any defects. They were designed for jumps and stunts so a tandem trike should be no problem.

The hubs are from Origin 8. They have disc brake rotor mounts and take a
20mm axle. I suppose you can get them from a bunch of places but these hubs were on my Amazon wishlist. Santa must have seen them there and decided I’d been nice enough to get them as a gift. I was going to use them for another project, but this trike came first.

Actually, I have plans to make these wheels mount with a sports wheelchair style quick release. This is another deviation from the plans. The plans call for the front wheels to be secured with a bolt which also acts as an axle. Here a quick release pin will function as the bolt and it will slide inside the 20 mm diameter tube which is the actual axle.

Normally such a setup would be pretty expensive. If you look at rugby wheelchair parts the quick release pins alone are $60-$80. Luckilly, my old friend eBay came through again. I got my quick release pins from an industrial surplus dealer for $20 a pair. Someone from Europe was selling 20mm aluminum tube for a fraction of what an actual branded 20mm axle would cost and it’s the same material. I got half a meter of 20mm aluminum tube for $5 and about the same in shipping. That’s enough for multiple projects.

You really can’t beat having all this stuff just show up at your door. It is a real time saver. There’s a place for scrounging for free parts and making do with whatever you have – believe me, I’ve done my share of that and I’ll be doing some of that here – but when you’re trying to meet a deadline, getting exactly what you need when you need it is invaluable.

This modification will allow me to remove the trike’s front wheels without tools for transportation, storage and maintenance. I’ll also be able to use the wheels on another trike so I’ll get the most use out of them. It won’t be a big deal to swap the wheels from project to project. I think it will be worth it and not much more expensive than a bolted axle. Besides, how cool is it to be able to remove the wheels on your trike with a push of a button? Way cool. Cool Factor 10.